D20 ways to get access to magic without reading books
Make a pact with a god. # Let yourself become possessed by malevolent spirits. # Steal a wizard's teeth and shove them into your mouth. # Blood is magic. To become more magical, you need more blood. # Get a big pile of gold. That's how dragons do it. # Master the power of fighting spirit by screaming very loudly. # Nanomachines # Be so cute and pretty the world bends for you. Literally. # Use the power of friendship # Licking magic toads # The world is a simulation. Hack the planet. # bargain for each individual spell with a being that wants to become human. It will ask you anything from your body parts to tilling the land for a year so that it may observe you. # Dance for 13 hours straight in a spell-nest # A terminal illness gives you magic as a sside effect. # Magic is a conspiracy. Doesn't actually exist. It's all just mirrors and bits of twine. Wizards are just people really good at manipulating twine. # Exploit your fertility, a la Melissandre from GoT. # Chop off a limb and give it to a genie # Zeitgeists are real and powerful spirits. If you dress in sufficiently outdated fashion, a lonely zeitgeist might notice you and give you some fabulous powers. # Constellations # Mana falls from the sky in big lumps. Eat it. # Eat the book # Create the opposite of a book and do the opposite of reading it. # Strap a bunch of spellbooks to your body like armor. The ambient magic will make something happen. # Burn the book, make war-paint from the ashes # Steal a Wizard's Body, never let the spells in their head leave. # Seek out and annoy a nest of radioactive phase spiders. # Stab yourself with random magical items. Surely one of them will grant you powers. # Origami # Shove a sword out of the way of an enchanting ritual last second. Take its place. # Hippo/Dinosaur poop. # Prospecting (like for gold, but spells instead) # The laws of physics are a government coverup. Anyone can do magic if they stop eating the fluoridated ham. # be so talented at law that the angels/modrons/gods notice you and offer you a job # same thing, but with chaos and fiends # Same thing but with moisture and Poseidon. Don't ask me how to be 'good at moisture'. If I knew, then I would be a wizard. # Kiss your own elbow # Pretend to be a famous wizard, so their spells get confused and obey you instead # Get a 38 on a 1d20 # Tattoo the spells right into your skin (can’t cast unless the skin is bare. Choose locations carefully) # Take a sip from the Fun Fungal Fountain # Eat the brain of a talking animal. # Swallow a wizard whole # Argue with method 42 # Just argue. Eventually the universe will give in to your incessant bitching. # Engage in a discussion with a modron and make it contradict itself # Make God contradict itself without the aid of Douglas Adams. # The soul is contained in the skeleton. If you implant a second skeleton, then you'll have an extra soul to use for magic. # Drill a hole into your skull and coat your scalp in liquid occultum. It will act like a beacon for wandering spells, which will enter trough the hole directly into your brain # Fake it till you make it. # Get married to a demon. # Fractal acupuncture # Medically die, get revived, and capture your ghost # Breathe in a seed of a world tree and let it grow in your lungs # scrimshaw bones, then break them. the larger and older the bones the more powerful the magic # Strike a bargain with The Mould and agree to be their herald, spreading spores wherever you go # bathe in the light of a foreign star. it works for superman # lose your name and replace it with one stolen from a magic creature # Do something, anything, more excessively than anyone has done it before, and you'll become the god of that thing.